A Quick Look: HAVE ROCKET, WILL TRAVEL (1959)

   Because of the word of their boss at Columbia, The Three Stooges appeared in two-reel shorts longer than any other property. While other studios phased out two-reelers in the 1950's, the Stooges continued to be seen in the format right to the end of the decade. When a new regime stepped in, Columbia stopped making two-reelers, but knew they still had a hot property in the Three Stooges. (The older shorts were ratings giants on television, and personal appearances continued to sell out.) HAVE ROCKET, WILL TRAVEL was the first feature to star the Stooges*, and the first screen teaming of Moe Howard and Larry Fine with Curly Joe Derita -who would remain with the team until the end. The story tells of an experimental rocket program, for which the Stooges serve as janitors. When the project's lady scientist can't come up with the right rocket fuel formula, the Stooges decide to help her out by mixing up a batch after hours. As you might guess, the end result is that the Stooges are the ones accidentally shot into orbit. They land on another planet to discover a sentient machine in control of everything, and the machine decides to conquer Earth with an army of duplicate Stooges! The first of the Stooge features is the weakest, although it remains plenty of fun. The scripts and editing would get much stronger in the subsequent pictures, however. In a lot of ways, the setup mirrors the earlier Abbott and Costello vehicle ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS, which may be why the film opts not to feature the usual Lost Civilization of Beautiful Women. Indeed, the film seems to be aimed much more squarely at kids than the later films would be, right down to the inclusion of a talking unicorn! Still, fun stuff, and an important stage in the career of the Stooges.

[*The Stooges, of course, had appeared in a number of musical feature films during the 40's, including the wonderful SWING PARADE, but they were always part of an ensemble cast of performers. They would usually be sidekicks to the romantic lead, and be highlighted in a few zany skits sprinkled throughout the picture. HAVE ROCKET, WILL TRAVEL was the first film made specifically to star the Stooges. In an interesting bit of trivia, the Stooges' first feature film was SOUP TO NUTS -written by none other than Rube Goldberg!]